The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

352 Pages·2005·1.9 MB·English

by  Laurence Davis

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The New
Utopian Politics of
Ursula K. Le Guin’s
The Dispossessed
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The New
Utopian Politics of
Ursula K. Le Guin’s
The Dispossessed
Edited by
Laurence Davis and
Peter Stillman
LEXINGTON BOOKS
A Division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham •Boulder •New York •Toronto •Oxford
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LEXINGTON BOOKS
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard,Suite 200
Lanham,MD 20706
PO Box 317
Oxford
OX2 9RU,UK
Copyright © 2005 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a
retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic,mechanical,
photocopying,recording,or otherwise,without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The new utopian politics of Ursula K.Le Guin’s The dispossessed / edited by
Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7391-0862-X (cloth :alk.paper) — ISBN 0-7391-1086-1 (pbk.:alk.paper)
1. Le Guin,Ursula K.,1929- Dispossessed.2. Le Guin,Ursula K.,1929—Political
and social views.3. Politics and literature—United States—History—20th century.4.
Political fiction,American—History and criticism.5. Utopias in literature. I.Davis,
Laurence,1967- II.Stillman,Peter G.
PS3562.E42D576 2005
813'.54—dc22 2005011066
Printed in the United States of America
∞™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials,ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
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Contents
Editorial Note vii
Introduction ix
Laurence Davis
Part I.Open-Ended Utopian Politics
1 The Dynamic and Revolutionary Utopia of
Ursula K.Le Guin 3
Laurence Davis
2 Worlds Apart:Ursula K.Le Guin and the
Possibility of Method 37
Simon Stow
Part II.Post-Consumerist Politics
3 The Dispossessedas Ecological Political Theory 55
Peter G.Stillman
4 Ursula K.Le Guin,Herbert Marcuse,and the
Fate of Utopia in the Postmodern 75
Andrew Reynolds
5 The Alien Comes Home:Getting Past the Twin Planets of
Possession and Austerity in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed 95
Douglas Spencer
Part III.Anarchist Politics
6 Individual and Community in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed 111
Dan Sabia
v
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vi Contents
7 The Need for Walls:Privacy,Community,and
Freedom in The Dispossessed 129
Mark Tunick
8 Breaching Invisible Walls:Individual Anarchy in
The Dispossessed 149
Winter Elliott
Part IV.Temporal Politics
9 Time and the Measure of the Political Animal 167
Ellen M.Rigsby
10 Fulfillment as a Function of Time,or the Ambiguous
Process of Utopia 181
Jennifer Rodgers
11 Science and Politics in The Dispossessed:Le Guin and the
“Science Wars” 195
Tony Burns
Part V.Revolutionary Politics
12 The Gap in the Wall:Partnership,Physics,and
Politics in The Dispossessed 219
Everett L.Hamner
13 From Ambiguity to Self-Reflexivity:
Revolutionizing Fantasy Space 233
Bülent Somay
14 Future Conditional or Future Perfect? The Dispossessedand
Permanent Revolution 249
Chris Ferns
Part VI.Open-Ended Utopian Politics
15 Ambiguous Choices:Skepticism as a Grounding for Utopia 265
Claire P.Curtis
16 Empty Hands:Communication,Pluralism,and Community
in Ursula K.Le Guin’s The Dispossessed 283
Avery Plaw
A Response,by Ansible,from Tau Ceti 305
Ursula K.Le Guin
Further Reading 309
Index 311
About the Contributors 321
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Editorial Note
I
n print continuously since its original publication in 1974,The Dispossessedhas
appeared in a variety of differently paginated editions.All references to The Dis-
possessedin this book have been standardized to the recent (and identically pagi-
nated) 387-page HarperCollins paperback editions.The following table, which
includes some of the most readily available editions of The Dispossessed,is meant
to assist those readers who do not have a 387-page edition of the novel.
Gollancz
Harper HarperCollins cloth
& Row Harper & Row Avon pbks. 1974, 1991 Granada
cloth book club cloth pbk. 1991, 1994, Millennium pbk.
19741 19742 19753 2001, 20034 pbk. 19995 19756
chap. pp. pp. pp. pp. pp. pp.
1 1–22 1–22 1–20 1–25 5–24 9–28
2 23–55 23–55 21–50 26–62 25–54 29–58
3 56–80 56–79 51–73 63–90 55–77 59–81
4 81–111 80–110 74–101 91–125 78–105 82–109
5 112–136 111–134 102–124 126–153 106–128 110–132
6 137–169 135–167 125–154 154–191 129–159 133–162
7 170–205 168–203 155–187 192–232 160–193 163–195
8 206–238 204–235 188–217 233–270 194–223 196–225
9 239–270 236–267 218–246 271–307 224–253 226–254
10 271–295 268–292 247–269 308–335 254–276 255–277
11 296–309 293–306 270–282 336–351 277–289 278–290
(continued)
vii
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viii Editorial Note
Gollancz
Harper HarperCollins cloth
& Row Harper & Row Avon pbks. 1974, 1991 Granada
cloth book club cloth pbk. 1991, 1994, Millennium pbk.
19741 19742 19753 2001, 20034 pbk. 19995 19756
chap. pp. pp. pp. pp. pp. pp.
12 310–334 307–331 283–305 352–379 290–312 291–313
13 335–341 332–338 306–311 380–387 313–319 314–319
1. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
2. New York: Book Club Edition, Harper & Row, 1974.
3. New York: Avon, 1975.
4. New York: HarperCollins pbks. (HarperPaperbacks, 1991; HarperPrism, 1994; Eos, 2001; Perennial, 2003).
5. London: Gollancz, 1974; Gollancz, 1991; Gollancz Millennium, 1999.
6. London: Granada, 1975.
Note:The full title of the book has varied.The 1974 Gollancz edition and the
2003 Perennial edition list the title of the book as The Dispossessed:A Novel.The
1991 and 1999 Gollancz editions read simply The Dispossessed.The 1975 Avon
edition has on its cover a subtitle or banner:“The Magnificent New Epic of an
Ambiguous Utopia.”The others listed above read The Dispossessed:An Ambiguous
Utopiaon their title pages.
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Introduction
Laurence Davis
F
irst published in 1974,Ursula K.Le Guin’s powerful utopian novel The Dis-
possessed:An Ambiguous Utopiaimmediately received widespread acclaim,includ-
ing both the Hugo and Nebula awards.More recently,the influential social and
political thinker André Gorz commented that The Dispossessedis “The most strik-
ing description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed commu-
nist or,in other words,anarchist society.”1To date,however,the radical political
ramifications of the novel remain woefully under explored.
In The New Utopian Politics ofUrsula K.Le Guin’s The Dispossessed,the first
ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin’s novel,we aim to help right
this state of affairs.Among the pertinent questions we consider are the following.
Is Gorz’s characterization of the novel an accurate one? To what extent may The
Dispossessed be read as an anarchist, ecological, anticapitalist, or revolutionary
utopia? Which political themes emerge most strongly from the story,and to what
extent do they engage with contemporary political debates or important ideas
in the history of political thought? To what extent does Le Guin’s “ambiguous
utopia” represent a challenge to traditional models of utopian literature and
thought? Does it have anything distinctive to say about the relationship between
literature and politics,history and politics,science and politics,or art and society?
Does the book have anything distinctive to say about the relationship between in-
dividuality and community,or about the nature and role of politics in general? In
what ways does the work challenge the reader’s sense of conventional temporal re-
lationships? What connections does it suggest between conceptions of time and
ideas of human freedom? What roles do moral,social,and political conflict play
in the story? Is it fair to describe The Dispossessedas a “dynamic,”“pluralistic,”or
“revolutionary”utopia?
The scholarly core of the book is composed of sixteen chapters grouped in six
major sections,each of which focuses on a particular aspect of the novel’s politics.
ix
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x Laurence Davis
As editors of the volume,Peter Stillman and I are particularly pleased to note not
only the exceptional quality of the individual contributions, but also the many
stimulating ways in which they speak to one another.We are also delighted to draw
the reader’s attention to the concluding essay by Le Guin,written specially for this
volume,in which she reassesses the novel in light of the contributors’analyses and
the development of her own thinking over the past thirty years.
The book opens with chapters by Laurence Davis and Simon Stow on the
“open-ended utopian politics”of The Dispossessed.Both tackle head-on a question
that recurs throughout the edited volume, specifically the extent to which Le
Guin’s “ambiguous utopia”poses a challenge to prevailing models of utopian lit-
erature and thought premised on an association between utopia and the idea of
perfection.Both do so,moreover,by paying particular attention to the fact that
Le Guin chose to write her utopia as a novel.
In chapter 1, “The Dynamic and Revolutionary Utopia of Ursula K. Le
Guin,”Davis argues that The Dispossessed demonstrates the viability of a type of
utopianism that defenders and critics of utopia alike have difficulty even imagin-
ing:namely,a dynamic and revolutionary utopia premised on an acceptance of the
enduring reality of social conflict and historical change.In support of this argu-
ment he offers an extensive analysis of the structure of the novel,some of its key
metaphors,the psychological,intellectual,and political development of its main
character, and the changing relationship between its two central worlds. The
common thread binding together these diverse modes of analysis is a focus on the
treatment of time and history in the novel.
According to Davis, Le Guin succeeds in The Dispossessed in representing
utopia not as a timeless and unattainable state of perfection,but as a time-sensitive,
revolutionary critical perspective that can expand the opportunities for free human
choice and meaningful action by helping to break open the horizon of historical
possibility. In so doing, he suggests, she redeems both the concept and fictional
practice of utopia.She also dramatizes the dangers of dogmatic,mechanistic,Eu-
clidean,and deterministic conceptions of history,and reminds us of the indispen-
sable part played in historical change by individual choice, moral responsibility,
and personal creativity.Davis concludes the chapter by restating his argument in
metaphorical terms,“if the dominant form of utopian narrative is a timeless mon-
ument to Euclidean reason,The Dispossessedis a mighty wave of the imagination in
the ocean of time,on the crest of which we are all buoyed up and provided with a
glimpse of the farther shore.”
Like Davis, Stow eschews a reductively didactic or ideological reading of
the novel in favor of one that emphasizes some of the more subtle ways in which
it succeeds in fostering critical perspective.According to Stow,Le Guin avoids
the twin pitfalls of treating utopia as either escapist fantasy or political blueprint
by recognizing the complexity of the relationship between what the anarchist
theorist Paul Goodman called the “written”and the “unwritten”worlds.She does
so,more specifically,by tapping into a long tradition of political thought based